Table of Contents

This study is provided by ICPSR.
ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis
for a diverse and expanding social science research community.

Referenda and Primary Election Materials (ICPSR 6)

Principal Investigator(s):Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research

Summary:

This data collection contains election returns at the
county and state levels from the mid-nineteenth century to the late
twentieth century for primary and general elections on statewide
referenda, constitutional amendments, state House/Senate joint
resolutions, and initiated measures. The ballot language of each
measure is also included. County-level returns for most
gubernatorial, senatorial, and congressional primary elections from
1910 to the present are documented as well.

Study Description

Citation

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. REFERENDA AND PRIMARY ELECTION MATERIALS. ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1995. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR00006.v1

Most of the information for this collection is
available ONLY in typed and photocopied form. The exception is
statewide referenda data from 1968 to 1990, which ICPSR has converted
into machine-readable form. Included in this portion of the collection
are the county vote breakdowns for approximately 4,241 referenda voted
upon in primary and general elections throughout the United States. A
typed hardcopy codebook accompanies each state file. The primary
election data are NOT available in machine-readable form. It is
possible to supply, on a cost basis, limited portions of the referenda
and primary election returns that are not machine-readable in the form
of photocopies.

Methodology

Data Source:

official election returns provided by state governments

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: